Liquid compositions for cleaning hard-surfaces have been disclosed in the art. Much of the focus for such compositions has been on providing outstanding cleaning performances on a variety of soils and surfaces and, more particularly, to provide improved performance on the removal of limescale.
Indeed, one type of stains frequently occurring on hard surfaces found in bathrooms, toilets, garages, driveways, basements, gardens, kitchens, etc., are limescale deposits. Limescale deposits, are formed due to the fact that tap water contains a certain amount of solubilised ions, which upon water evaporation eventually deposit as salts such as calcium carbonate on hard surfaces, which are frequently in contact with water. The visible limescale deposits result in an unaesthetic aspect of the surfaces. The limescale formation and deposition phenomenon is even more acute in places where water is particularly hard. Furthermore, limescale deposits are prone to combination with other types of soils, such as soap scum or grease, and can lead to the formation of limescale-soil mixture deposits (limescale-containing soils). The removal of limescale deposits and limescale-containing soils is herein in general referred to as “limescale removal” or “removing limescale”.
It is known to use acidic compositions to clean hard surfaces and that such formulations show good overall cleaning performance and good limescale removal performance. Indeed, for example WO 2004/018599 describes acidic hard surface cleaning compositions comprising an acid or a mixture thereof. Amongst the acids suitable in hard surface cleaning compositions, formic acid has been identified as one acid that provides good limescale removal performance.
However, there are some limitations to the convenience of acidic compositions employed as hard surface cleaner. Indeed, it is known that some hard surfaces, such as enamel and several metals, e.g. stainless steel and aluminum, are sensitive to acids and may be severely damaged by acidic compositions used to clean said surfaces. In particular, it has been found that formic acid-based hard surface cleaner compositions show a surface safety profile that can still be further improved. Indeed, such formic acid-based hard surface cleaner compositions may still be corrosive to the treated surface.
It is thus an objective of the present invention to provide a liquid, acidic hard surface cleaning composition that provides good limescale removal performance whilst showing a good surface safety profile on the treated surface. In particular, it is an objective of the present invention to provide a liquid hard surface cleaning composition comprising formic acid that provides an acceptable limescale removal performance especially when compared to other compositions (having similar levels of free-acidity) having a lower/higher pH as claimed herein and comprising formic acid alone or in combination with another acid (such as phosphoric acid) whilst having an improved surface safety profile on the treated surface as compared to such other compositions comprising formic acid alone or in combination with another acid (such as phosphoric acid).
It has been found that the above objective can be met by the composition according to the present invention.
It is an advantage of the compositions according to the present invention that they may be used to clean hard surfaces made of a variety of materials like glazed and non-glazed ceramic tiles, enamel, stainless steel, Inox®, Formica®, vinyl, no-wax vinyl, linoleum, melamine, glass, plastics.